THF. TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [August i, 1888. 
PLANTING IN THE LOWCOUNTRY. 
COCONUTS AND CINNAMON — THE WET SEASON— FEVEB 
AND CHIME. 
Siyane Korale, June 1888. 
This month has been a very favourable one for plant- 
in?. With the exception of the fall on the 2nd-3rd, 
which gauged 3-73 inches, we never on auy one day 
had two inches of rain. All the raio that fell was 
in slow gentle showers so favourable for planting. 
Before the planting season commenced in May. I was 
warned not to plant after the end of May, as I had 
let the season pass! It is only now that we are in 
the season of heavy rainfall and floods. It is well 
to be as early as possible in planting, but to Le 
asked to stop operations before we had well en- 
tered on the planting season, shows to what lengths 
we can go in trying to emulate the early bird of 
the well-known proverb. The planting months of the 
south-west monsoon are generally June-July, while 
if the rain falls in abundance in May we may 
commence in that month. Except in abnormal seasons 
we have uo month without rain between the south-west 
and north-east monsoons, so that the planting of the 
south-west season has a very fair chance of success. 
The same cannot be said of the north-east season 
except in TJva. 
As is to be expected, coconut trees are flourishing 
in this weather, and the blossoms the trees are throw- 
ing out this month, and which are to yield our big 
crops, are really very cheering. Before we can reap 
the resulting nuts from them, however, the trees 
have to run the gauntlet of the annual drought at the 
beginning of the year, which usually affects the coconut 
crops a good deal. As far as crops go prospects of 
next year are very hopeful, but then there are the 
prices. The three big coconut crops are harvested 
between April and August, and it is then that prices 
are low. This season has been no exception to the rule. 
The local demand for coconuts and copra is very slack 
in spite of the fair prices ruling for the latter in 
Colombo. 
As far as I am concerned I am in the full swing 
of the cinnamon crop. During my experience Ifcava 
never known cinnamon peel as well as it does for the last 
two or three weeks. Hardly a mature stick escapes 
the cattie of the peeler, and a field of cinnamon 
after the peelers have been through it looks for all 
the world like a young plantation. This exceptional 
state of things is probably owing to the mild weather 
we are having, moisture and heat combined, which pro- 
duce a free flow of sap. The wintering the bushes re- 
ceived during the early part of the year caused them to 
throw out a heavy seed bud with the first rains that 
followed. As long as the seed is on the bushes, which is 
pretty well on to the end of the year, the sticks carrying 
them do not peel, owing possibly to the growth being 
checked and with it the free flow of sap, in the effort 
to mature the seed. To estates with a rich soil and where 
the growth of the wood is rapid, this causes 
great loss, as by the time the seed-bearing bushes 
are peelable they will have grown so much as to 
yield coarse bark fit to quill coarse cinnamon or not 
fit to be quilled at all. Owing to having had a very 
heavy crop of seed, which, if the bushes were allowed 
to carry till the usual period, my crop of cinnamon 
would have been seriously affected both as regards 
quality and quantity, I hit upon the novel expedient 
of stripping the seed to obviate this. The result has 
exceeded my expectations, for within a short period 
of the stripping almost every stick peels, and as far 
as I am concerned the cost of the work — 75c. per 
acre — has been amply recouped. 
The peeling season ends with the Ehela daluwa or 
July bud which usually makes its appearance in July- 
August. This is the natural interval between the 
two crops when the bushes enjoy rest and make 
much growth. The bud or flush usually lasts for two 
mouths, during which Reeling has to be suspended. 
This brings us on to the N.-E. monsoon or the season 
of the small crop, small because the wet months are 
so few, and during which another period of enforced 
cessation from peeling intervenes owing to another bud. 
Wo have another six weeks or so of the season to run. 
Fever is again prevalent in the villages. Relief 
will be immediate if either Mudaliyars make it part 
of their duty to inquire of the minor headmen after 
the health of the people committed to their charge, 
and make it their duty to report to them when 
sickness breaks out, or if the Medical Department 
recognises it to be part of their duty to have medi- 
cal officers itinera'ing through the villages during the 
usual fever season. But what the villages want is 
systematic not spasmodic medical aid. 
Crime, I am sorry to say, is on the increase. Numerous 
petitions and letters to the Government Agent have 
received the stereotyped leply that steps will be taken 
to put clown crime. So far as is evident nothing 
has been done, for no diminution of crime is 
apparent. We want young active Mudaliyars, who 
will move freely through their korales and who have 
the minor headmen under proper control, to cope 
with crime. The usual procedure when petitions are 
sent to the Q. A. is for them to be referred to the 
Mudaliyar. These latter officials will be more thin 
human if they knowingly report anything that will 
be to their discredit. They get up their minor 
headman and ask for an explanation; as the pro- 
ceedings are ex -parte the usual reply is that crime 
does not exist, but that the petition is the result of 
a conspiracy. Hence it is that crime flourishes un- 
checked in the villages and its inhabitants get gra- 
dually demoralized. One remedy will be for Mudali- 
yars to he required to periodically travel through 
their korale and to report fully on its state as 
regards agriculture, crime, &c. — Lowcountry Planter. 
♦ 
A TEIP TO DELI : SUMATRA TOBACCO. 
The port of Belawan has recently jumped into 
importance in the world of commerce as the place 
whence £2,000,000 sterling worth of excellent to- 
bacco is exported every year. Within the past 
few months the river route to the old mart of 
Laboean orLabuan, i. e. " the anchorage," has been 
abadoned by all but very small craft, and a 
good second rate railway has been constructed 
between Belawan, Laboean, Medan (the present 
seat of the Dutch Resident for Deli), Langkat, 
and other places in the interior. Langkat may 
also be reached by steamer from Penang. So far, 
the whole of the east coast of Sumatra is desti- 
tute of lights, not so much as a tallow candle 
being provided to mark even the outer buoys. 
The buoys, again, two long lines of which now 
guide the mariner into the mazy port of Deli, 
are only the after-thought of the past six months, 
whilst a bar, exposed to ugly washes from a cross 
sea, exists here also to impede navigation, as at 
the majority of ports in the East. A new light- 
house has just come out in pieces, but owing to 
the extreme unhealthiness of the swampy coast, 
it has not yet been found possible to obtain Euro- 
pean workmen to aid in the erection of it. The 
entrance to the Laboean River is walled in on 
both sides by a dense jungle of mangroves and 
tropical trees like every other sea-port in Indo- 
China. Belawan is on the right bank, about 
three miles up the river, and consists of a 
railway station and three hulks, with a few rush 
huts built on piles in the usual Malay style, 
and inhabited by a dozen or so of sampanmen, 
chiefly, of course, the ubiquitous Chinaman, who 
seems able to live anywhere and to eat anything, — of 
which there is here nothing visible to eat at all. 
When the tide retires from thejungle.it leaves bare 
a reeking, sweltering mass of ooze and slime sugges- 
tive of water-snakes and crocodiles ( which last, 
indeed, used to swarm until the steamers frightened 
them away) I and so deadly is the Deli fever said 
to be, that every man-jack of the railway staff 
retires with the last train to Kampong-Besaar, a 
place about 10 miles inland. The train travels 
